I often get asked about the tools I use to shape up my blog so I've decided to list them all here. I’ve been building different kind of websites for years now and obviously, I’ve tried a ton of tools along the way. Some of them are fantastic, and some of them just plain suck.

To ramp up your blogging business, you need to be a little more aggressive with your marketing. BUT you can’t do that alone. We all know that blogging takes a lot of hard work, time and effort to do it well.

So you need to find the right tools to help you get more work done faster, while providing quality content for your audience.

Here are the various tools, apps and resources that will help you boost your creativity, and make your blog even more awesome.(leer más...)

So you decided to deploy an e-learning solution for your enterprise or organization. Or maybe build an e-learning school of your own. As long-time e-learning experts we welcome you to this exciting endeavor.

In this post we’ll try to give a comprehensive list of all the tools, services, accessories and software you’ll need for your e-learning deployment.

To Cloud or not to Cloud?

You of course are going to need a LMS. And we hope you consider using our industry leading e-learning solutions, TalentLMS and eFront. But even if you go for an inferior LMS (well, we had to say it), there are several things you have to consider, the most important being whether you want a Cloud solution or a custom LMS deployment (either hosted or internally deployed).

Cloud-hosted LMS

A Cloud based LMS is one that’s made available for you by a third party usually under a subscription model (like our flagship TalentLMS). The benefit of this approach is that you don’t need to be concerned with installing, updating and managing servers and software. Those are all taken care for you, and you essentially get a turn-key solution that’s known to work smoothly and that is maintained for you by the very team that created it in the first place.

You’ll still have to add your own content and customize some aspects of its operation, but that’s just the essential configuration that you have to do with any LMS solution. The complexities are hidden from you (and the architecture can get quite complex underneath, e.g files may be stored out of server in flexible storage services like Amazon S3 and there would be multiple web and db servers deployed, alongside CDNs and load balancers). You can start and stop your Cloud LMS use at anytime, easily add more e-learning sites, and even scale your projects automagically to multiple nodes and millions of users as your needs grow.

A Cloud is perhaps the preferred solution for most basic LMS needs, except if you want total flexibility and the ability to make changes to the e-learning environment (as Cloud solutions offer limited customizability). Another possible issue about using a Cloud LMS would be if your corporate policy doesn’t allow hosting your learning material with a third party (e.g because it contains sensitive information about your company). You might as well prefer a non-cloud solution if you want to avoid recurring charges.

Self-hosted (internally deployed) LMS

If you fall into the above category, then you probably need to invest in a deployed (or self-hosted) LMS platform (in which case, may we suggest our best of breed eFront product?). A self-hosted LMS platform is basically a web application, usually sold as a licensed product, that you get to install and maintain in your own server. You have (depending on the license) full control on all aspects of the LMS operation, as well as the option to alter its code to fit any special needs your might have, and you can even restrict access to it so that, for example, only people connected to your company’s intranet (or VPN) can use it.

With the increased power, though, come greater responsibility, as you’ll be responsible for things like backing up your data, updating the server software and scaling to more machines. You also need to contact the vendor and license updates and upgrades (though some might be included for free in the licensing price).

Hosted LMS

A hybrid option between those two would be the hosted LMS, were you have access to a full blown installation of an LMS platform on a dedicated server. This option, which we offer in the form of our hosted eFront product, gives you full customization abilities combined with the managed backups, updates and upgrades of the Cloud version. You also get the benefit of having an expert team making sure your server and LMS run smoothly.

The downside to the hosted LMS solution is that it takes some time to deploy a new one (usually 1-2 business days), as a new server has to be setup and provisioned for you. Also, like in the self-hosted case, a hosted LMS cannot scale without extra technical support, (although, in the hosted LMS case this can sometimes be provided as an extra service for a fee).

Shopping list

We’ll begin with the tools you’ll need if you opt for a self-hosted LMS solution, as they are more numerous and complicated:

– A server [or a hosting provider]: a machine that is setup with a server operating system and a network connection capable of serving web content to your users. That can be a machine provided and setup by your company’s IT deparment, or some server that you lease from a third party hosting provider.

– A web server and a database server: those are software solutions that serve web applications and store data respectively. The most commonly used are Apache and MySQL, but there are several options, including IIS and SQL Server in the Windows side of the fence. You’ll also need to install some web server add-ons to handle your LMS code (e.g the PHP modules if your LMS is written in that language). What kind of web and database server to use depends on the requirements of your chosen LMS platform, so you don’t have total flexibility in this matter.

– An email server: you’ll need to configure your server to be able to send and receive email. This is essential for some LMS features like Notifications.

– A domain name: you might not need one, if you just use your LMS inside the company. But if you want to have it accessible from the web for everybody, you’ll need to give it a domain name (e.g “www.mylms.com”). You can register a domain with any web registrar such as GoDaddy or Name.com – it will cost you something in the range of $10-$20 per year.

Those are just the basics of course, and it all depends on what extra services and functionality you might want to add to your self-hosted e-learning system.

If your deployment is intended as a commercial operation with paid users for example (as opposed to internal employee training for your own company), you’ll also want to invest in tools for monitoring your server’s health (there are several services that offer this, such as Pingdom and New Relic) and in a support system were your users can report problems and raise issues (e.g ZenDesk).

With a Cloud LMS, all of the above have been taken care of for you, with the possible exception of the domain name (and that’s only if you need a totally custom one. If not, then the subdomain you get that’s based on the LMS provider’s domain name is more than adequate).

In the next post in this series we’ll get to the tools and services you’ll need for your e-learning content creation and consumption.

An LMS platform is an essential tool for the modern enterprise and organization. But, with all the available options and vendors, finding one with the right balance of features to cover all your educational and business needs can be quite daunting. Fortunately, there’s some help coming your way. Software Advice, the Texas based software experts offering detailed reviews, comparisons and advice to software buyers have just released their latest annual report for the LMS market.

Software Advice’s 2014 Learning Management System BuyerView report, aims to uncover “the top LMS buyer trends, including motivations for purchasing new software, deployment preferences and the most sought-after features“, by analyzing the information the firm gathered from interacting with thousands of LMS buyers.

Such tracking of e-learning trends can be very valuable for prospective LMS buyers, since it provides them with an overview of the market and offers them insight on industry trends and important buying considerations.

Now, if you allow us to proudly tout our own horn, we’d like to go through the key findings of Software Advice’s 2014 Learning Management System BuyerView report with you, and explain how eFront has your needs covered.

1) Automatic for the people

Over one-third of the prospective LMS buyers noted that they were using manual methods to train their employees, such as in-person training sessions. If this describes your organization, our eFront Enterprise Learning Management System can help you automate the whole training process, while at the same time letting your employees go through it at their own pace, without rigid training schedules and wasted productivity.

2) Web of trust

The overwhelming majority of prospective LMS buyers that Software Advice spoke to, said they prefer Web-based software. Makes sense to us: web-based software enables remote collaboration, requires no installation by the students, is cross-platform, and, with the advances in web technologies such as HTML5, is also mighty capable. Attributes that perfectly describe eFront, out web-based enterprise grade LMS.

3) On the right track

One of the most requested features among LMS buyers was the ability to track and record the training process. With eFront that’s a piece of cake ― or rather, pie. As in the comprehensive pie and bar charts produced by our highly flexible Reports Generator, with enable you to visually track your trainees progress. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg: eFront offers full logging of student actions, comprehensive reports showing the skills and educational status of all employees, and the ability to assign skills to employees when they complete specific lessons.

4) What was old is new again

Also high on the priorities for potential LMS buyers was the ability to upload and store training content already created (e.g manually). eFront prides itself on its powerful and flexible visual content editor, but it’s no slouch when it comes to integrating existing content either. With support for a variety of media types, a comprehensive File Manager and Digital Library system that enables administrators to upload, organize, use and share files, and full SCORM compliance that enables SCORM content to be imported into the system, eFront has you covered. Plus, it’s modular nature enables the writing of custom plugins that can leverage existing content or talk to third-party systems.

5) Reporting without borders

Reporting is another must-have item, being the third most commonly requested feature in the Survey. And it’s one area were eFront excels, with a full blown Report Generator that makes creating reports a breeze, and tons of report types that cover every business need, like time-constraint reports, events reports, branch reports, participation reports, certificate reports, and more.

6) High scoring

Last, but not least, in our breakdown of most requested LMS features, is the ability to do automated testing and scoring. eFront is once again ahead of the pack here, with it’s intuitive Test Builder that allow teachers to create tests quickly, and reuse questions across multiple tests. And, acknowledging the fact that students learn best at their own pace, eFront enables you to identify the skills that your students lack and personalize their training paths.

If you’re looking to buy the right LMS for your enterprise or organization, we suggest you have a look at Software Advice’s 2014 Learning Management System BuyerView report. It will give you a pretty good idea of what features other LMS buyers value and what the current trends in enterprise LMS use are.

And then you’ll know why our own eFront Enterprise Learning Management System is really the best-of-breed LMS solution, that covers all those needs and more

Every month we put together a list of our favorite articles for our monthly newsletter (based on Jane Hart’s comprehensive monthly lists) – we’ve put those together and taken note of the most popular articles on social media (the ones with the most RTs, shares and likes) to create this list of best reads in elearning and learning for the year!

The team at eFront and TalentLMS have got together to create a FREE elearning eBook to download on everything anyone needed to know about elearning! This ‘eLearning 101’ book covers all important and relevant concepts, trends and applications of elearning.

People new to elearning will appreciate the first chapters which define elearning, describe best practices, goes over the basics on learning platforms, and online courses – how to make elearning effective and the tools that help you to do so.

Those more familiar with the basic concepts will find a wealth of information on current elearning trends which shape and define eLearning now, and in the near and distant future. Topics covered include: social and collaborative learning, blended learning, gamification, micro-learning, video learning, rapid elearning, personalization and elearning, and continuous learning.

Distinguished Colleagues, It is a pleasure and an honour to be here and I am very grateful to the Professor Tom Sork and the organisers for the opportunity. My topic today is: Open Education Resources: Innovation for Development?

I will first look at the Commonwealth context and the issues of development that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency if the internationally agreed development goals are to be achieved by 2015. I will then look at the emergence of OER which are seen as an innovation that cut costs, improve quality and enhance access to education and training. This will lead to the question of whether the development and use of OER are addressing some of the development challenges in many countries of the global south. I will outline some of the strategies that we need to harness OER so that the development objectives can be achieved. Finally, I will share some examples of what my own organization, the Commonwealth of Learning had done to promote OER for development.

But first a word about the Commonwealth of Learning or COL which might well be one of the best kept secrets of beautiful British Columbia.

COL is an intergovernmental organisation, established by Commonwealth Heads of Government when they met in Vancouver in 1987. COL is the only Commonwealth intergovernmental organization to be located outside London. We are very grateful to the Government of Canada for hosting us and for its continued financial and intellectual support. (...)

When the John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University -DEOL Office conducted a study on different open-source LMS solutions to deliver education to a wide range of students around the globe – eFront came out on top. They decided that in terms of cost savings and ease of use and control, eFront was the best tool to use in engaging online distance learning.

Here’s what they had to say about implementing eFront:

“Among LMS solutions, eFront takes the lead in terms of integration with the corporate and educational environment. The overall implementation of the JBLFMU – ODL was successful and delivered on time and with beneficial results. The primary benefit is that all online courses provided by the school can now be delivered and accessed by all concerned. Instructors are now more adept at developing digital course content and have learned how to set, mark and record student progress online.” They added, “eFront is professionally supported and designed to last. It is always reliable because someone is regularly available on hand if something does go wrong.”

For more on this customer story, and the successful implementation of eFront for education, check this out!

First, use AoA Audio Extractor to extract your file from GoToMeeting (or other recording tool) & convert to “WAV”. Note: if your recording tool allows you to export your file automatically to “WAV” you can skip the first step.

Step 2: Familiarize yourself with Audacity by visiting any of the following

Audacity Quick Help (should be installed locally, internet version if it isn’t)

Audacity Manual (should be installed locally, internet version if it isn’t)

Audacity Wiki (the latest tips, tricks and tutorials, on the internet)

Audacity Forum (ask your question directly, on the internet)

Once you have a basic idea of how to navigate Audacity (it’s quite intuitive so if you’re a hands-on person you won’t need much time to get the hang of it) it’s time to ‘organize’ your audio files.

Generally a podcast is composed of the following:

General intro with music [file]

Introducing the speaker [record this in advance]

Speaker’s response to greeting

Host asking 1st question / 2nd / 3rd / 4th etc. [steps 4 & 5 repeat]

Speaker’s answer

After final answer, Host’s concluding remark [record this in advance]

Speaker’s response to closing remark

Host’s concluding remark [record this in advance]

General closing with music [file]

With this organization in mind, open Audacity and start to import your files. The following approach will take you step-by-step through the process of importing and editing your audio files using Audacity.